There is no shortage of celebrities attached to the London Olympics, but Tony Hancock may be the least likely of them.

The late comedian and actor will "welcome" the thousands of athletes arriving in the capital in a special version of Hancock's Half Hour not heard since 1958.

Hancock recorded the show as part of a live BBC broadcast from the London Coliseum to entertain athletes in the capital on their way home from the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff that year.

The nine-minute skit, featuring Sid James and Bill Kerr, was thought lost forever until it was found as part of a vast collection of TV, film and radio recordings left by comedian Bob Monkhouse, who died in 2003.

Hancock's Half Hour – Welcome to London 1958 will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4's digital sister station, Radio 4 Extra, on Sunday.

Radio 4's commissioning editor, comedy, Caroline Raphael, said: "It was a live theatrical performance, part of a week of activities that was put on for athletes who were coming through London for the games.

"It's about the Empire and Commonwealth Games but actually it has all kinds of twinkly resonances because of the Olympics. It's funny in its own right."

In it, Hancock declares the games open and "bless all who jump in them".

He refers to the "British Empire Games, or Commonwealth if you're sensitive about it ... all those pink bits on the map".

"1,500 athletes coming from all over the world to Cardiff," he adds.

"To jump about and run and leap into swimming pools and throw hammers and spears and dash around the country with numbers on their backs and belt the living daylights out of each other."

Originally aired on the BBC Light programme, fans of a certain sort of trivia may also welcome the fact that the 1958 broadcast was the first programme relayed direct by the BBC Overseas General Service via transatlantic cable to Canada.

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